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Cox is behind the times.
While the rest of the world is moving towards gigabit broadband and unlimited access, Cox Cable continues to live in the past with a regime of data caps the company blames on increased data usage. Your only solution is to upgrade to a bigger data plan you may not want or really need.
Somehow, the folks at Cox can’t seem to manage the natural growth of the Internet while start-ups ranging from Google Fiber to a local fiber provider just getting started in our own community goes out of their way to point out how unnecessary usage limits and usage billing really are.
At Stop the Cap!, we’ll let you in on a little secret the “tech wonder twins” at Cox forgot to mention: data caps are not about managing Internet traffic, they are about managing to control costs, protect cable-TV revenue, and eventually empty customers’ wallets.
Since data caps don’t make much sense in the 21st century reality-based community, Cox attempted a longer-form rationale for data caps in a video that resembles a bad VHS copy of an interrogation by your local homicide squad. Don’t worry, only the truth gets murdered by the ironically named “Tech Talk with Todd and Sarah.” Six minutes later, you still know they’re full of it.
Tip: Next time, bring “the tech.”
[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Cox Tech Talk with Todd and Sarah Internet Usage Trends.mp4[/flv]
What Cox still fails to understand (and what Google will have to teach them when they invade Cox’s biggest territories, including Phoenix) is that data caps and usage billing are as anachronistic as those 1978 limited edition Diana Prince/Wonder Woman glasses Sarah is still wearing. (6:17)
Imagine if you had a car you can only drive a certain amount of miles per month. That is about what caps are. They do no solve anything. It doesn’t solve congestion to limit mileage, that only inhibits economic activity.
You mean a leased car?
That is a bad example. This is more like being at an all you can eat buffet but saying each plate after the second is going to cost you extra.
Usage caps are a dream for cable companies. First you discourage cord-cutting, and second, you increase profits by charging for overages or by up-selling customers to more expensive packages. Protect your distribution monopoly and the sacred cable bundle, and make more money at the same time! Any attempt to get rid of caps is going up against this dynamic. Network congestion is the perfect cover and justification, even though it’s clearly BS.
Hard to believe but Cox just doubled their speeds on all packages, BUT left the usage caps as is. How dumb. They should have doubled the caps too. But then again, why would they do that? Caps are their way of screwing the competition.